Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate The 21st Century's Global Energy Economy
This text provides a survey of the energy resources for the foreseeable future and argues that there is not, nor has there been, a supply crisis.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate The 21st Century's Global Energy Economy
Postscript: February 2004
The first three years of the 21st century have already become history. Does the data for these years sustain the validity of trends forecast in the book? Have events and developments since 2000 indicated the onset of significant political or economic disturbances in the global energy system? This Postscript briefly examines the most important issues.
a. The demand for energy
Post-2000, the global demand for energy has continued to increase at the late-20th century rate of 1.7% per annum (see Figure 1.1). The 3-year increase in use of some 425 mtoe has, however, been over 95% met by carbon fuels, given that hydro-electricity has failed to maintain late 20th century production levels, while nuclear power s expansion of over 2.5% per annum in the 1990s has virtually ground to a halt with the closure of time-expired nuclear power stations and little by way of new facilities.
Meanwhile, the expansion of new renewables (such as wind and biomass energy) has barely got into its stride, in spite of the large government subsidies available for such developments in most OECD countries.
In overall terms, therefore, global energy use since 2000 has become more, rather than less, dependent on carbon fuels. This is at variance with the forecast in Chapter 1 for a short-term future increase in the contribution of renewables to total energy demand as policies which aimed to encourage the production of clean energy, in the context of the very high profile fears for the adverse consequences of global warming/climate change and...
Copyright Peter Odell 2004 under license agreement with Books24x7
